1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to electronic educational devices, and more particularly to an audio-visual learning device for teaching small children by association of an object such as a musical instrument or an animal which produces a distinctive sound with the viewable indicia associated therewith and description thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
The availability and relative low cost of electronic education and training devices and systems have had a great influence upon educating people, particularly younger children. By the inclusion of inexpensive yet extremely powerful CPUs, audio synthesizers and the like which may both control system operation and selective synthesized audible words, music and sounds, the scope of these educational and entertainment devices for children, even for families with modest means, has greatly increased.
Examples of such electronic educational and entertainment toys and devices are disclosed in the following U.S. patents.                U.S. Pat. No. 4,280,809 to Greenberg, et al.        U.S. Pat. No. 4,482,329 to Shindo        U.S. Pat. No. 4,997,374 to Simone        U.S. Pat. No. 5,413,355 to Gonzalez        U.S. Pat. No. 5,478,240 to Cogliano        U.S. Pat. No. 5,595,489 to Kwon        U.S. Pat. No. 5,944,533 to Wood        U.S. Pat. No. 6,109,925 to Druckman, et al.        U.S. Pat. No. 6,264,523 to Simmons        
However, none of these prior art disclosures appear to capture the powerful educational tool of teaching a child to be directed to a viewable indicia representative of an object by directing the child's visual attention toward distinctive synthesized sound produced by the object which emanates from that viewable indicia. This educational technique of the present invention draws the attention of listening and eyesight of the child to viewable indicia in the form of either a graphic display of an object and/or the word describing the object itself by a sound which synthesizes that which is typically associated with the object itself. For example, if one of the objects displayed graphically on the invention is a cow, a graphic display of a cow will be presented at one location on the device immediately adjacent to which the word “cow” appears in large letters. When the child or attendant selects that viewable indicia by manual activation, the sound emitted by a cow, e.g. “moooooooooo” will emanate from a sound emitting area immediately adjacent or in very close proximity to the viewable indicia itself such that the eye and listening attention of the child is directed to and focused on the viewable indicia by the sound which emanates therefrom.